Jordan leaves to play Bangladesh in Group B qualifier

AMMAN — Jordan’s national football team left to Bangladesh for its third Group B qualifier of the 2018 World Cup in Russia doubling as part of the qualification for 2019 Asian Cup. 

Jordan had a disappointing 0-0 draw against Kyrgyzstan in which the line-up appeared below par and goalie Amer Shafie was the man of the match as his teammates lost chance after chance and failed to score a vital win over their 155th ranked opponents.

This week, Australia took the group lead from Jordan after they beat Bangladesh 5-0. Jordan beat Tajikistan 3-1 in their opening qualifier, Bangladesh held Tajikistan 1-1 after they lost to Kyrgyzstan 3-1 and Australia beat Kyrgyzstan 2-1. 

Following the qualifier against Bangladesh on September 8, Jordan will play Australia on October 8. Forty teams are playing home and away in a round-robin format in the current second qualifying round which runs until March 2016. 

It has been an inconsistent year for Jordan’s line-up which was led by Briton Ray Wilkins under whom the team failed to advance past the group of the 2015 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup. Ahmad Abdul Qader took over in the transitional phase under whom the team played the first qualifier. Now Belgian Paul Put has taken over since July but Jordan had not regrouped much since June when they hosted Trinidad & Tobago and won 3-0 in a friendly. 

In its last friendly, Jordan held the U-23 team 0-0 and beat them 3-0. This year, Jordan also played four friendlies holding Kuwait 2-2, Lebanon 0-0, losing 2-1 to Saudi Arabia and 1-0 to Syria. 

In the latest FIFA World Rankings, Group B teams are led by Australia at (61) followed by Jordan who went up a spot to 91, Kyrgyzstan (155), Tajikistan (158) and Bangladesh (173).

Argentina took over top spot from Germany atop the 10 leading teams, followed by Belgium, Germany, Columbia, Brazil, Portugal, Romania, Chile, Wales and England.

Jordan is 9th among Asian teams trailing Iran (40), South Korea (57), Japan (58), Australia (61), the UAE (70), Uzbekistan (76), Iraq (82) and China (84). 

Jordan had the most memorable World Cup qualifying journey in 2013 when they lost a possible chance to play at the World Cup for the first time when they advanced to play then World’s 6th ranked Uruguay in an intercontinental qualifying tie for a place in the 2014 World Cup. They lost the home game 5-0 and held the former World Cup champs 0-0 in the away match. Jordan had never reached that far in World Cup qualifying since taking part in the qualifiers since 1985. Round 3 had been the furthest Jordan reached in the past seven times in the qualifiers.

In the Asian Cup, Jordan reached the championship three times since first taking part in qualifiers in 1972: the pinnacle was at the 13th Asian Cup, when they lost to Japan in the quarter-finals and jumped to the best ever FIFA Ranking of 37th in August 2004. In 2011 Jordan again reached the quarter-finals.

Group B standings